Another column memorializes a woman who, despite her metastatic cancer, “did not give up any of her roles,” including “several hockey practices, school board, orchestra and other extracurricular activities,” and even took on new ones—all directed toward helping others—as the disease spread throughout her body. I am all for enthusiastic engagement with one’s community. But there is such a thing as a lust for life, and then there is being driven to derive one’s sense of self from constant activity, even to the point of not being able to pause for self-care when disaster strikes.
